Shooting 30 interviews in same place... background item suggestions?

MikeWilkinson

MikeWilkinson

Veteran
For a large project my client wants something like 30 interviews. They don't have the budget to let us interview these people in different places that relate better to their subject matter, (this would have been ideal) so we're going to roll them all into one place, and every so often I'm going to change the background lighting and objects.

Thankfully we are working in a VERY large room, so I can get lots of depth and blur the background quite a bit, but all I can think of to put there are fake plants. What else can you think of that will make the frame more interesting than blank walls with some cookie'd, colored lights?
 
Mike, is there anything that might fit the content of the interviews? What do all of these people do? I always like to incorporate any cool looking equipment that might make sense if its feasible. Otherwise, plants, lamps, fancy clocks, art on the wall, vases, urns, anything from Pier 1, candles, books on shelves,and combine all of it with colored lights and cookies of course :) Grab some cheap mini blinds and cookie with the those - can make a nice fake window. Just get metal and not vinyl - vinyl lets too much light through.

http://www.bluesky-web.com/index-5.html
Walter Graff has some nice looking interviews in the "techniques" section.
 
Great link Jeff, thanks for that. The content has to do with Mental illness awareness.

Thanks Jason, I had considered Green screen, but it's not in the budget... would require more work on the editors part, and then we would need content to key in. We've stretched the budget as far as possible, leaving just a few grand as a buffer for overruns in post.
 
I once had to shoot a lot of interviews in a hotel room. We had a dedicated sets/props guy who hung fake walls, drapes, paintings and used all kinds of lamps, vases, flowers etc.
If I had to do it over on a budget, greenscreen would be my choice. You have the luxury of a large space, I 've always wanted to experiment with video/slide rear projection of backgrounds but sound dept. always vetoed that.

Sounds like fun, really.

chris
 
For interviews on news programs like 60 Minutes and Dateline they use black background. Also, lots of shooting in conference rooms. They like one conference room with a glass block wall they can light from behind. I suggest letting the background go black and fill in with some nearby props.
 
I too would go with a black background, unless you have some reason to want the audience to think the interviews are at individual locations. Setting up one location with a black background will also be much faster and easier than 30 setups and relocations. But still change your camera angles and lighting a little for each interviewee, just for some visual variety.
 
clang said:
I too would go with a black background, unless you have some reason to want the audience to think the interviews are at individual locations. Setting up one location with a black background will also be much faster and easier than 30 setups and relocations. But still change your camera angles and lighting a little for each interviewee, just for some visual variety.
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I agree that using a black background would be much easier than changing the background, but I think the black background look is too dark and dramatic for most of this content. I want to change the look every few shots just to add variety, they don't need to look like different places, just a little different from each other.
 
Plants, hung pictures around, tables (with tabletop plants and they may have an old phone lying around), I don't know, just look around you, anything could become a prop. And don't forget to use cookies (the lighting ones, the others could also be usable if you have to do all 30 interviews the same day..) they can change the look of a scene dramatically (that's why I love'em).
 
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I do these all of the time, although 30 is a lot of interviews. There are several ways to do this effectively. I shot over 50 interviews for two pieces that were on the The Wizard of Oz three DVD collectors set and I went through the same thing. Here are some random bits of stuff that I learned...

1. I have used video projectors on white seamless paper and with slide projector screens. This gave me the freedom to animate stills into a moving BG that looked pretty cool but some of the issues were that moving images can look distracting unless they are simple, move slowly and are soft. The other issue is that you have to try to balance your lighting levels with the video projectors. We were using wimpy little Casio consumer projectors, the problem was that the images were too dim behind the talent with a good exposure on the video lighting. We ran into the old lack of dynamic range so we would have to tame the video lighting down to a level that wouldn't over power the wimpy projectors. You can rent really powerful nice projectors but they are large, expensive and are amazingly loud with bigger fans to cool the higher output bulbs. Tough issues to deal with and solve.

2. Realistically, you don't need 30 different BGs. I would divide the script into 5-6 looks. Even with one BG you could have three frames (wide, medium and CU) and two sides (talent on camera left and talent on camera right). The important thing in cutting is that you don't cut from two interviews that are frames the same, that have the same BG and the talent on the same side. With careful planning you can mitigate this.

3. If you have a huge room and some art direction budget and some ingenuity, you could setup 5-6 different "sets" all around the room. When I say, sets, these don't have to be real sets with flats, etc. I have built some nice living rooms and hotel rooms with $500.00 to $600.00 at Ikea and what I had available around the office. Since most interviews are head and shoulders or closer, your "sets" can really just be a wall made out of 4x8 plywood with some wall covering. I have bought sheets of plywood and just stained them with some dark Mahogany stain and on camera, you would swear that they are a high end wall in a fancy room. You need to have an art director or set designer or have an eye yourself. I do it myself and am decent at it, it just takes some taste and imagination. And careful lighting, you highlight what you want to show and hide the seams and cables and junk in the shadows.

4. You could go as simple as a colored slash or cucloris pattern on a plain white wall and just switch out patterns and colors. Shoot your CUs of the best looking people, move to the mediums and wides for the people not as genetically gifted (I say this as someone who has a face made for radio!). Shoot half camera left and half camera right. The secret is to just make sure that when you are cutting, there is a color and or framing change so the cuts don't look too much alike.

5. Personally, I am done with muslin BGs, they look dated and dorky so don't do those. I personally like simple and tasteful in real environments but with 30 interviews, that may be really tough. You can always do the black limbo but switch out colored posters or props with a spotlight on them in the BG? If your people deal with metal health, why not get some posters of patients they might work with and use those as a BG element, preferably in professionaly shot, tasteful images of hope, inspiration and patient successes (not sure what the video is about so adjust accordingly). That would be very visually strong for me, simple, to the point, stark, yet moving. Think like an agency creative director, what makese visual sense for these people and this project?

Dan
 
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